


55. “I’ll come back for you.”

by pacoca



Series: soft prompts; [3]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, The Long Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22542733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pacoca/pseuds/pacoca
Summary: Brienne and Jaime together in the Long Night.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: soft prompts; [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612939
Comments: 5
Kudos: 53





	55. “I’ll come back for you.”

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crescenthour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescenthour/gifts).



> I haven’t touched got since that season finale, and idk anything about wounds!! but i tried!!!

White walkers are inconvenient, to say the least, but there are a few good uses for a bloodthirsty army of undead that’s hellbent on destroying all of mankind as we know it. 

For one, they make a great conversation starter.

‘Do you think—‘ A walker charges just at the edge of his vision, and Jaime sidesteps just enough for it to stumble forward. His sword swipes in an arc and the walker’s head is flung clean out of it’s shoulders, ‘Do you—‘ He breathes, ‘Do you think the white walkers have feelings? Do you think they have dreams?’ 

He hears a guttural grunt and another walker is chopped in half. ‘I do not know, and could care less, Ser Jaime.’ Brienne huffs. The only light that comes through these days is from the fire of their torches. When the light dances around them, her form seems to waver in and out of existence, melding in the dark and striking out beneath the light at once.

Another small group surges in from the dark. 

‘But they must have thoughts,’ He swings, and the walker’s arm is chopped in half, ‘Or feelings—‘ Another heavy swing, and it crumples on the snow, ‘Or desires. Or dreams even.’

‘Ser Jaime, I’d rather you _stop talking_ when we are in the middle of fighting an army of the undead.’ Her blade is sharp, and he hears the fall of another walker, their head lolling on the ground. The last of them comes at Brienne with a frenzied cry, and she steps forward, swings her great sword, snow splattering along with the rotting remains of the walker’s torso. It stumbles back off balance, and Jaime surges forward, stabbing from the back. The walker falls on the snow. Dead.

Their laboured breathing is all that’s left in the silence between them.

‘What about wights. Do wights fuck?’

Brienne doesn’t say anything, too wound up now to tolerate him. He likes to get under her skin, likes it when she huffs at him, exasperated, and he feels like a boy in trouble.

‘Lady Brienne?’ He looks over at her.

She’s bent over, a tension in the way that she holds Oathkeeper. Time stops to the stillness of her, and he watches as she stutters, drops the tight hold of her sword between her slack fingers, and falls unceremoniously to her knees.

He moves before his mind catches up with him.

There’s a pit in his stomach that wasn’t there before, even with the cold and the constant darkness that’s all around them. A frenzied panic that’s taken hold in his throat, all the way down his gut. He doesn’t hear his blade falling on the snow as he bends over her. He grips her armor until he finds the blood there, fresh and splattered dark across her side.

The wound hidden is a deep gash that cuts through the layer of hard plate and chainmail, right into the flesh beneath.

His anger is a living thing, trembling inside of him.

She grits her teeth, ‘I’m fine.’

‘No you’re _not_ fine. Why didn’t you say anything?’ There is blood coating on his gloves and and the fur on the trim, gleaming wet against the light of his torch.

‘We have to keep moving.’ Her voice is hoarse. ‘It’s the only thing left.’

‘You have to rest! We have to take care of this or it’ll get even worse.’

‘Ser Jaime, in due of the circumstances, I don’t think that is an option for us at the moment.’

She’s right of course, the way stubborn women like her always seems to be. But doesn’t she know? He can be just as stubborn too.

———

The Long Night is less of an event and more like a state of being. Time and sense is eaten up by the gaping of maw of blackness that’s melted the lines between the sky and the earth, so that all there is is a perpetual blindness, and the sharp, unforgiving cold of the North that bites at the frays of sanity. 

They were a small band once, hopeful but weary, setting out into the wild North before they were taken out one by one. At first, it was the cold. The chill takes a permanent residence in their skin even under the layers of fur and old leather. It eats away until their fingers are blue, noses black and rotting from their faces. And then came the Hoard, the white walkers. They are vicious, bloody things, relentless in their mindless pursuit for flesh. They brought with them the Night, and whoever didn’t survive the bloody onslaught of the undead was left to succumb to the slow insanity of a world trapped in constant, perpetual darkness. 

It wasn’t long before they were the only ones left of their merry band to survive.

He carries her arm over his shoulder, his arm wrapped around her waist as they trudge through the frigid wasteland together.

Jaime and Brienne at the end of the world.

———

It’s too dangerous now to charge in reckless at a small band of wild white walkers. It’s always been a risk to engage with the things in case the horde is alerted, but now with Brienne’s situation it’s downright impossible. While Jaime doesn’t fancy going toe to toe with the blasted things on a good day, he’d much rather have a partner to back him up than to risk going at it alone. And right now, his partner is…. indisposed.

Their fires are out now, preferring to move on stealth rather than firepower. He huddles himself beside her, his fur coat thrown over her shoulders. They keep quiet as they wait for the white walkers to pass. Their snarls and their ugly stench is echoing all around and out into the dark. Jaime pulls Brienne close beside him, their breathing mingling into warm puffs of air like its one. 

She’s shaking. Brienne is the bravest woman he’s ever met, but the chill has set in her bones, and the fever has latched inside, bacteria spreading in her blood and even her body cannot deny its innate need for comfort. 

He presses his forehead on her temple and closes his eyes.

Jaime can’t admit it, but he’s terrified of losing her. Not because he’s afraid to be alone, but because he’s afraid to be alone without her. 

And he’s terrified to admit what that means in a world where the only constant outcome is to lose. 

He wonders if she can hear the beating of his heart, even with the monsters snarling all around them. The way it stutters behind his ribs, just for her. 

She moves her head and presses her nose to his cheek, and he thinks, at that moment, that she does.

——-

There are times when he’ll drift to sleep and he’ll dream of sunlight and warmth. 

He’d dream of the wild, green plains of the South, the way the ocean crashes through the grey rocks of the iron islands like glass, the sound of foam against a sandy beach, and the piercing cry of a wild bird behind the weirwood trees of the Rainwood forest.

It’s a simple fact of life now, that he’ll see more colour when he closes his eyes than when he opens them. 

Sometimes he’ll dream of leaving her to look for aid. Travelling alone is faster by himself, and if there’s a chance that he can cover those couple of minutes alone by getting aid, companions, maybe even medicine, then maybe—just maybe—it will be worth it.

 _I’ll come back for you_ , he’ll tell her. _I promise._

Then he wakes up, and he’ll feel the slow, ragged pace of her breathing against his cheek and he knows he can never truly leave her. Just like some deep, innate part of him knows that if circumstances ever befell him the same fate, Brienne would do the same.

She would check her pulse just like he is, feel the warmth of her forehead behind his palm, feel the sinking, genuine relief of knowing that she’s still alive lift him up like a tide. If not for her sake, then for his own selfish need not to suffer in a world like this without her. 

And then they’d get up. She’d haul him to his feet just like he is, and they’d walk together across the North, their bodies pressed like lovers, waiting for dawn.

Together.


End file.
